Koch brothers can buy lies, but they can’t make those lies the truth

Timothy Egan EXAMINES efforts by the multi-billionaire Koch brothers, Charles and David, to use their money to distort realities regarding climate change:

According to one study, the Kochs have already spent $61 million on various front groups dedicated to the flat-earth proposition that the globe is not warming. But so far, the only return on that investment is a cohort of people flopping around in the waters of stupidity. About 44 percent of Republicans and 70 percent of Tea Party-leaning voters believe there is no solid evidence that the earth is getting warmer, according to the Pew Research Center…

†This is 70 percent who have been convinced that the actual hard numbers, that 9 of the 10 warmest years on record have occurred in this century, are a hoax. Itís like saying, No, it was not 75 degrees in Atlanta yesterday ó thatís just your view.

What this shows is that you can buy a lie, but you canít make that lie the truth. Over the last nine months, three exhaustive studies have shown that climate change is happening now, and will continue to unfold in real time, with record droughts in the American West, rising seas along the Atlantic coast, and global megastorms so catastrophic they will divert CNN from the missing plane. The climate experts in these studies are the gold standard ó from places like the National Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society. They are not political hacks looking to spin something.

Timothy Egan EXAMINES efforts by the multi-billionaire Koch brothers, Charles and David, to use their money to distort realities regarding climate change:

According to one study, the Kochs have already spent $61 million on various front groups dedicated to the flat-earth proposition that the globe is not warming. But so far, the only return on that investment is a cohort of people flopping around in the waters of stupidity. About 44 percent of Republicans and 70 percent of Tea Party-leaning voters believe there is no solid evidence that the earth is getting warmer, according to the Pew Research Center…

†This is 70 percent who have been convinced that the actual hard numbers, that 9 of the 10 warmest years on record have occurred in this century, are a hoax. Itís like saying, No, it was not 75 degrees in Atlanta yesterday ó thatís just your view.

What this shows is that you can buy a lie, but you canít make that lie the truth. Over the last nine months, three exhaustive studies have shown that climate change is happening now, and will continue to unfold in real time, with record droughts in the American West, rising seas along the Atlantic coast, and global megastorms so catastrophic they will divert CNN from the missing plane. The climate experts in these studies are the gold standard ó from places like the National Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society. They are not political hacks looking to spin something.

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